


to be a human being

by phcbosz



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Drug Addiction, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, No incest!!!!!, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Underage Substance Use, not even allison and luther
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-10-31 15:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17852285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phcbosz/pseuds/phcbosz
Summary: Klaus Hargreeves is back in his non-polluted, clean, thirteen-year-old body, and he has an apocalypse to stop. But things are never easy in the Umbrella Academy, and all Klaus wants to do is find his stash of money to get high.Good thing his siblings are trying to stop him from going down that path this time though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings for canonical character death, child abuse, past self-harm mentions, and drug addiction

“It worked!” Allison is the first to speak, with a voice too high pitched, something from the past.

And when Klaus turns his head and sees Ben’s body, alive and warm and solid, and right there, he knows that it has truly worked, even though Ben looks to be thirteen, even though they are all thirteen, nothing matters except the way Ben is looking at him, and the way his heart jumps through his chest, fingertips tingling with anticipation, barely able to believe that he might touch Ben, after so many years of trying and failing.

“Ben?”

Nobody comments on it, when his voice shakes too much in the quiet space they are standing, nobody even acknowledges the quiver of his chin, and when he stumbles on the way to his brother, all but running, nobody is looking.

When his hands touch, _feel_ Ben, he all but cries with relief, and it must be his suddenly-teenager-again eyes because Klaus isn’t one to get teary-eyed this easy, _he is not_. But Ben is there, and when Klaus puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder, it is too easy to pull him in, and it’s too hard to resist, and that’s how he ends up with a stiff Ben in his arms, sobbing.

See, the thing is, it’s too quiet in the place they occupy, the bubble they fill, because nobody knows what to say, nobody has the lungs to speak, and they all watch, confused, as Klaus weeps, because none of them understand, they don’t know what it means, to finally be able to touch Ben, they don’t know how long Klaus has been trying, the things he did just for a shred of what he has right then—

When Ben died, Klaus was right beside him. It all happened so fast, because that’s how death works, Klaus will find out. It’s always too fast and quick and there is no time for hand-holding before the body you are holding disappears, turns to ash or dust, bends inside your palms, slides through your fingertips…

When Ben died, Klaus couldn’t even react. There is something so simple about death yet so hard to understand. You never expect it, you never know how to accept it, and moving on is not even an option, then.

Ben dies, and Klaus is the first to see it, scream, and his voice sounds foreign to his ears, then, and he is useless, standing there, or on his knees, shaking Ben’s limp body like it will change something, and there is blood everywhere, and Klaus has no idea what he is doing, because his powers have always been useless, especially when he is as high as this, and there is nothing he can do to help, none of it will mean anything—

Klaus, is good at repressing memories even though they are still happening. It’s like blinds on his eyes, or really strong sunglasses that make it impossible to see. When he represses, he sees the world through thick fog, or a dirty window; everything is warped and flipped upside down, like one of those mirrors at the circus.

The next thing he knows he is in the bathroom, on the ground, and he has long since stopped crying, but his cheeks are still wet and tacky, and his eyes burn with every blink. The grip he has on his arms, hugging himself with his knees tucked to his chest, is so tight that he is leaving marks, bruises in the shape of hands, and it’s a horrifying feeling but he literally can not feel the pain, he can’t feel anything, can’t see, can’t hear; there is nothing, just a black space, or a lack of it, a void he is fast falling in.

Ben is there, with him. Ben is crying, Ben is scared, Ben doesn’t know what is going on, Ben is just like all the other corpses following him around, then. Klaus doesn’t know how to deal with that, he never knew how to deal with the other souls around him, but Ben is his brother, Ben is supposed to be different, Ben is supposed to be alive, Ben is supposed to be solid.

When Klaus screams for Ben to leave, tries to swat at the air, it’s all a fruitless fight, he just disturbs the light, and Ben’s vision wavers, only manages to freak out them both, only manages to make it worse. Klaus is pressing his hands on his ears to drown out the sounds blasting right beside his ear, but Ben’s voice still echoes inside his head, bounces from one empty corner to another deserted spot; and Ben doesn’t leave, he just stands there, staring.

There are noises out the door too, people who have heard him scream and are worried, because Ben has been dead for a few hours now, and Klaus is ‘ _taking it hard_ ’ and Klaus ‘ _doesn’t know how to deal with it_ ’ and Klaus is locked in the bathroom, screaming, the shower running still, overflooding from the bathtub and touching his toes, like ocean waves crashing down his sandcastles at the beach.

Ben leaves, eventually, but he stays too long for it to be okay, for Klaus to be sane, because his brother was right there, but his brother is dead, and that’s only a corpse, it’s a demon haunting him for his sins—

Ben leaves, eventually, after Klaus begs him to, tells him in every way that he knows that he can’t help, _it doesn’t work that way_.

After that, he takes a needle to his skin for the first time, because no matter how many pills he pops, he can’t stop seeing Ben, from the corner of his eyes, there for a second, then gone, between a breath and the next.

Being high is familiar, and welcome, and high is everything he is supposed to be, because Ben is dead, and Klaus has never been too good at coping, he never learned how to deal with anything, at all.

After that, Ben is something steady in his life, stable, and Ben never leaves, even when he screams about how disappointed he is, even when he cries and tells Klaus he is never going to see him again, he always comes back, after a while, and they never talk about it, all of Klaus’ apologies on his sleeve, only for Ben to see, only for Ben to accept, only for Ben to feel.

People always leave, and Klaus always leaves, and nothing ever stays, except Ben.

Ben with his dry comments, and quiet laughs, and legendary glares…

Klaus can’t count the times he has tried to touch the man, but the amount is more than the number of scars on his thighs, made from his own hands, from when he was young and wanted something on his body to belong to him, and tattoos weren’t edgy enough, for some reason, in his young, _stupid_ mind.

It never works. He can never touch Ben, Ben can never touch him, and on nights where Klaus has to sleep on the streets, hugging his own body for warmth, trying to touch Ben only makes him shiver, feel colder than he already is.

Now, being able to touch Ben, like this, strong and tight; now, being able to feel Ben hug him back, the boy’s warmth seeping into him… Klaus has every right in the world to weep, sob, and scream.

He only cries, silently, and Ben is crying too, and he has every right too, because this is the first time anyone has touched him in years, since he died and got stuck with Klaus, of all people.

They hug for too long, too painful, too aching, but when they finally separate, nobody comments on it, nobody says anything; even though they don’t understand, they can try to guess what it’s like, they try to be sympathetic.

“You guys done?” Diego is the one to ask, after Klaus wipes his tears on the hem of his oversized t-shirt, sniffs.

If they were a normal family, _a healthy one_ , everybody would be hugging Ben and crying, happy to finally have their brother back, reunited once again, but they are far away from normal, they always have been, and they learned at a very young age to feel their love and all their other emotions hidden beneath their skin.

Klaus has a hundred sarcastic replies to that, but Ben is the one to reply, because Ben knows him, Ben knows that Klaus doesn’t trust his voice to speak. “Yeah,” Ben says, with a small sigh. “It wouldn’t be a Hargreeves family meeting without some crying involved, right?”

And Allison chuckles softly, Luther smiles slightly, and Diego is looking away because his eyes have always been too expressive.

“If you idiots are done being a bunch of babies, I want to propose our new plan,” Five says, then, because they just survived an apocalypse, but that doesn’t mean they are free, that doesn’t mean it ends there, that doesn’t mean they can rest, because they are Hargreeves, and for them, life is just one fight after the other, it’s just saving the universe and saving it again.

Still, Klaus doesn’t really mind it as much, when he has Ben right next to him, but this time, their shoulders are brushing.


	2. Chapter 2

Five’s genius plan is not really genius. As soon as the boy stops talking, everyone starts up at the same time, one complaint drowning out the other, and it seems as if nobody is down for doing _that_.

_That_ is pretending nothing changed so nobody finds out, so they don’t change the timeline too drastically. Klaus also has a few problems with that, considering they are in their thirteen-year-old bodies.

Thirteen was not a good year for Klaus. He doesn’t know what time they are in exactly, but there is snow on the ground, which means it could be October. October was not a nice month for Klaus. That’s when dad started locking him in the mausoleum, two weeks after he turned thirteen.

And it’s not like the plan is going to work, anyway. There is no way they will be able to pull it off, and even if they do, Fie is not going to disappear again, Ben is not going to die, Klaus won’t run away in a lonely night, and the biggest plothole, Vanya isn’t just going to forget about her powers.

She is going to wake up, soon, and she will want answers, and maybe revenge, and they need to figure out a plan for that, really.

“Shut up!” Five suddenly screams, voice cracking. His cheeks are flushed an angry red, and he looks ruffled. “Everybody just shut up, okay? Unless you have a better plan—”

“I don’t need to have a better plan to know that yours suck,” Klaus says, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah,” Ben mutters, and he is still next to Klaus, he is still solid, and it’s a small comfort, grounding Klaus in the moment, helping him breathe, “I kinda died last time. Most of us ended up a mess.”

“Well,” Five snaps, then, a tremor to his clenched jaw, “I’m not saying we need to do everything exactly the same way. We just have to keep it a secret. And don’t do the same mistakes! So, if someone's to, say, go and get addicted to drugs, _again_ , then they are too stupid to be worth talking to anyway!”

“Hey!” Diego yells, then, as Klaus gasps, feigning offense. In reality, he feels nothing about his drug addiction. It’s just a thing that exists. It’s like breathing, in a way. Klaus doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t dwell on it, because it’s just breathing, and he has been breathing for too long to stop now.

“Excuse me, how is this about Klaus’ addiction?” Ben asks, then, stepping forward, like he is shielding Klaus behind him, and Klaus almost laughs at the expression Five makes.

When they were kids, Ben was the quietest kid, and even though he hung out more with Klaus, he was like Luther, in a way. He was always so ready to do whatever he is told, just to avoid confrontation. He hated his powers, yet he used them every time they needed, because if he didn’t, it would end up in an argument.

After he died, Ben grew up a lot. Klaus doesn’t know why. Maybe he had some rad ghost friends teach him how to live, but Ben changed. And now, back in their thirteen-year-old bodies, it’s been so long since everyone except Klaus has last seen Ben, and they have never seen him like this.

“And who made you leader anyway?” Luther asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest, and chin raised high. “I am Number One—”

“Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding us,” Klaus says, between a breath and an exhale, “I almost forgot for a second there. I mean, no way we would remember that without you reminding us every two fucking seconds!”

“Guys,” Allison calls out, kneeling beside Vanya’s sleeping form. Her voice is quiet and small, but it makes all of them stop instantly, their head snapping towards her. From the corner of his eye, Klaus sees Luther’s shoulders drop in defeat. “I don’t think this is the time for arguments.”

“Well, if you dumbasses would just listen to me for a second,” Five starts, and for a second, Klaus tries to listen, he really does, but the next, he finds something to complain about, and it seems that everybody else does, too, because suddenly they are arguing again, nobody even understanding what the other is saying because all their voices are drowned out by someone else.

Allison sighs, then. Rubs her forehead, and tries to fight off the headache approaching.

*

They make it home. Mostly because they are all too cold, and Vanya is starting to get paler and paler every minute. And Klaus’ voice is scratchy, and it hurts to speak with how sore his throat is.

He has been yelling a lot, lately, and his thirteen-year-old vocal cords are feeling a little abused, complaining in the form of pain. Normally, Klaus couldn’t care less about who is the leader, who is Number One, and all that bullshit dad tried to force down their throat as kids, but he can’t just sit and wait, do everything the same, just so Ben can die again.

It shouldn’t be that hard to understand, really. He just thinks that the house they are in needs some change, but nobody laughs when he jokes about how they should kill dad and be done with it. Five even looks like he is considering it, for a second.

Then, another argument starts, about how they can’t go back to _that_ house, live under _that_ man’s roof, and then another argument starts, between Diego and Luther, because Diego finds it funny that Luther suddenly changed sides, dad’s number one suddenly decided to hate him.

Then, Luther goes on and on about how dad sent him to the moon for _four years_ , and after that, Klaus really, really doesn’t know, because he tunes out everyone, sits on the cold ground, hugs his arms around his body for warmth, and wonders where he goes from there, what they are supposed to do now that they have made it here.

Back at home, it is cold, and everyone is quiet, and Five tells them to go to sleep, so that they can talk in the morning. Everybody is tired enough to obey, it seems, because nobody says anything, they just crawl to their rooms, inside their beds.

Now, Klaus is just laying there, wide awake. His ceiling looks funny, and the world looks so much bigger now that he is so small. He misses being tall, and big, and _old_ , because being thirteen is no fun.

The house is empty, but Klaus knows it won’t be, for long. The spirits will come soon enough. The way it works is that Klaus is a beacon, and somehow, the spirits can sense him. They know his name, they know what will make him cry, what will make him scream.

Under his mattress, hidden in the middle, is a joint. He doesn’t know why he remembers that. He remembers. He knows it’s there. It’s haunting him.

In this body, he is not an addict. He doesn’t have to be. Still, he knows what it’s like, to feel that haze in his mind, to be blind to everything around him, to have the voices finally shut up, and it’s calling to him, a sweet song lulling him to the lighter he knows is in his drawer, beneath his plain black socks.

The thing is, weed is not even that bad, and in this body, weed would probably be enough to have him fly and float, and it would be enough to make the corpses go away, not come back for a while. In this body, weed would be more than enough.

He could just smoke the joint, and don’t do any other drugs. It’s not like he is going to get addicted to weed. It’s not like he will do the same mistakes again. It’s just weed.

His mind is buzzing, and soon enough, the spirits will be there to haunt him, dad will try to lock him into the mausoleum, and it’s just weed, _it’s just weed_ , it’s nothing—

Suddenly, the door opens, and Klaus almost jumps up, feeling guilt churn his stomach like he has been caught doing something bad, when he wasn’t even thinking about doing something bad, because it’s just weed.

In the doorway: Ben. He looks tired, and small, and it’s been so long since Klaus has last seen Ben in those pajamas, with those chubby cheeks, and he almost tears up again.

Klaus has missed Ben, so much, that it makes his bones ache, his heart ache, and he has never missed a person this much before. Ben is right there, and Klaus’ hands are itching to touch him, a new addiction that would be weird if he thinks about it, but he doesn’t.

“I’m pretty sure I forgot how to sleep,” Ben says, and Ben sounds like he always did, even though his voice is different, now, younger.

Klaus giggles, a sound that catches him by surprise. “How does one forget how to sleep?” He asks, as he scoots to the side of the bed, to make room for Ben, lifts the blanket up in an invitation. “You just close your eyes and think about being asleep.”

Ben’s footsteps are light, and he closes the door behind himself when he gets in, leaving the only light in the room to be moonlight, reflecting off his big eyes, and making him look paler than he is. “I would like to see you try after being dead for thirteen years.”

Klaus looks away, then, even though Ben can’t see him. There is just something about the way Ben says it. Klaus finds that he can’t quite think about it, because it hurts too much. Ben has been dead for thirteen years. The bodies they are in have been alive for thirteen years.

Thirteen years, is a long time. It’s a lifetime. When Klaus was thirteen, he thought he had the world figure out completely, he thought he had the universe in his palm. Thirteen is not a good number, for Klaus.

Klaus clears his throat when Ben gets in, and they tug the blankets up their body, elbows and shoulders and legs and bodies and souls brushing.

“Well, you are alive now,” he says into the silence of the room, a smile stretching his lips, because he has been missing Ben for too long now, and Ben is next to him, “so you better start learning.”

Next to him, Ben laughs. Next to him, Ben is alive. Inside Klaus’ small bed, they exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update im failing school kind of skjkjks


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello daddies, i hate this chapter ! :D
> 
> also sorry this is so late lmao life has been wild lately but thats just how life be ig

The next morning, Klaus is dressed in the stupid uniform, down for breakfast, and waiting, right where he is supposed to, like a good boy.

He knows, if he causes trouble on the first day, all his siblings – maybe except for Ben – will suddenly blame him for everything wrong with the world. The thing is, if it’s Allison who is causing trouble, nobody cares, but if it’s Klaus, he is the worst person on the planet, _he always does this_ , it’s like he enjoys getting yelled at – because he’s made a name for himself as the useless junkie who is always chasing adrenaline.

He is used to it, at this point. That’s how he ends up being one of the only tree people down at breakfast, at 6 o’clock in the morning, when the sun hasn’t even started shining yet.

“Surprised you made it,” Five says as a greeting, a neutral expression on his face, but his eyes keep flickering to Ben, and his hands are clenched to form tiny fists.

“Where is everyone else?” Klaus asks, partly to break the tense silence that’s making Ben stand stiff next to him.

“Allison is with Vanya,” Five says with a sigh, “Luther and Diego are too stubborn to listen to reason, it seems.”

A quiet settles, then. It makes Klaus shiver, and his whole body is vibrating with uncontained energy. He’s never been too good at staying quiet, no matter his age, no matter his body.

Something grounds him, though. In Five’s eyes, there is uncertainty, something strange, because Klaus has never seen Five like this, before he disappeared, or after.

Time heals all wounds, they say, but it’s just enough so you don’t bleed out, not enough that it stops hurting. It’s been many years since Five disappeared, for Ben, it’s been longer, for Five, yet there they stand, with tightly shut lips and hesitant hands.

Klaus was never that close with Five, but after he disappeared, for a year, every day, dad ordered Kaus to project him. Klaus never managed to do it, dad always pushed harder, until one day, Klaus snapped.

There was a huge fight about how Five wasn’t dead, he just left because he was sick of dad’s bullshit. It had consequences, of course, but during the night, while Klaus was locked In his room, Ben came to visit him, and he brought food. Ben thanked him, for believing in Five, and ever since Five left, for the first time ever, Klaus cried, without wiping his face.

He didn’t have the guts then, but after Ben died, one day, during a fight, Klaus told him the truth, that he couldn’t project Five only because he was too high of his ass.

Ben left, for a few days, before he came back with a determined face. “Five is not dead,” he said, “you can project me even though you are high. You would be able to project him too.”

Then, with a waver in his voice, Ben repeated, “Five is not dead.”

“Of course not,” Klaus replied, “he is too stubborn to die.”

And that was that.

Klaus never talked about Five again, because he knew Ben, he knew what it meant for Ben’s voice to waver, ghost or not.

The day Five came back, Klaus was high, Ben was grieving dad, somewhere else, for a reason Klaus could never understand.

The day Five came back, still thirteen, and out of breath, all Klaus could think was, _what the hell am I going to tell Ben?_

But it turned out that everyone could see Five, and he wasn’t dead, but he just traveled back In time, and he was stuck in the apocalypse for a couple of days, years, whatever—he was alive, and Ben was going to be happy about it—

In the moment, Ben looks anything but happy. He looks stiff, and pale, and his shoulders are tense. Klaus knows he still isn’t used to being alive, being warm, being _solid_.

It’s been such a long time for all of them, but there they stand, wounded, hurting, bleeding –

“So, guys,” Klaus says, unable to hold quiet for any longer, “when are you starting the I-was-dead-but-now-I’m-not-and-it’s-awkward-as-fuck club?”

“I was never dead,” Five replies with a roll of his eyes.

“We all thought you were.”

They all stop, then. Klaus can hear himself breathe with how thick the silence is. It’s maybe meant to be just a joke, but Ben’s voice sounds heavier than that, wavering and small, almost drowned out by the hum of the room.

“No, we didn’t,” Klaus says, head snapping to Ben. “ _You_ never did,” he corrects himself.

He doesn’t know if Ben is going to reply, but he waits. A few seconds pass, when the silence is interrupted by footsteps.

There are some things you never forget, Klaus never forgets. His first time sneaking out, the way heroin feels in his veins, Ben’s death, his dad’s footsteps.

To this day – and _god_ , it’s been a long time – he can still tell by the echo the sound has where his father is, how fast he is walking, how angry he feels.

Dad is walking fast, down the stairs, and he is enraged. Klaus barely suppresses a shiver, then. No matter how old he is, there are things he can never forget, and the mausoleum is one of them.

The thing about dad’s anger is that it’s quiet, calm, and maybe there is something admirable in the way the man can always control himself.

He has never hit one of them, because even when he is angry, he can think, he can plan, and he is smart. He doesn’t go try to fight a bunch of superpowered kids with hormones running high – no. What he does is way worse.

He knows what will hurt the most for each one of them, and their punishments are all special to themselves. Klaus only knows Ben’s and Five’s punishments, beside himself.

For Ben, it’s more missions, more training, because what Ben sees in his nightmares, the one thing he hates more than anything, is the ‘monster’ inside himself.

For Five, it’s being sedated, asleep and vulnerable in every way. Dad lets him sleep for a few days, before allowing him to wake up, and Five is too unstable to use his power, so he just runs on shaky legs, inside the huge house, until he can find someone, anyone, and ask, “ _How long was I out?_ ” And then his belief about being in control, is lost forever.

The most dad has ever hurt Klaus is drag him to the mausoleum as he struggled and begged and spat curses at anyone who dared to make eye contact. He got bruises on his arms from how tight dad gripped him, and he was down there for a few days, without food, or water, or light, or anything but the spirits trying to make him cry -again- with anything they have.

When they hear dad’s footsteps, fast, angry, coming down the stairs, they all suppress a shiver, a ghost of a memory they wish they could forget.

It’s been a long time since Klaus saw his dad, alive, and well, and standing in front of him. The man is bigger than Klaus remembers, younger in a way, but still so much the same.

Klaus has always been tall and lanky, even as a kid, but seeing dad in front of him, looking like he is larger than life and ten feet tall, Klaus has never felt smaller.

“Some of your siblings thought it would be a smart idea to fake being sick,” is the first thing the man says, and it grounds Klaus with the familiarity of it, because their family has never been about saying ‘good morning’ in the morning. “You know the rules. They will be punished. In the meantime, let us eat.”

The rule is that lying is strictly forbidden, and to be considered sick, you need to have a fever of 100.4° F, or higher, and if you don’t, then you are lying about being sick.

It’s Klaus’ fault, in a way. He used to fake being sick, to get out of training, before he got a taste of Benadryl – then it was for a completely different, reason. It went on for a while, before dad reaized what was going on, and put the most stupid rules up.

One time, Allison was actually sick, but she didn’t have a fever, and she wasn’t throwing up, so dad refused to give her any medication. It was one of the very rare times that Luther ever stood up to dad, and disagreed with something the man said. He was punished for it, and then Klaus was punished for it when Luther decided that everything wrong with the world was his fault, after he came back from his punishments, looking pale, and sweaty, seeming distant, miles away —

Klaus wonders what his punishment was, what it’s going to be now, before he stops thinking altogether, because he is too sober, too much of everything, because dad is right in front of him, and Klaus feels like a thirteen-year-old kid again, with no hope of ever growing taller than his dad—

“What are you going to do to them?” Ben asks, to everyone’s surprise. Five probably gets whiplash from how fast his head snaps to Ben’s direction. Realizing what he just did, Ben grimaces, and attempts at a fix. “Sir.”

Klaus bites the inside of his cheek so hard that his eyes water, and behind his back, his hands are clenched tight, face frozen in a blank expression – he is doing everything he can to hold his laughter in, but Five’s face, dad’s face, everything about the moment – just a small puff of air manages to escaped his tightly shut lips, before he can hold it no longer, and loud laughter bubbles out of his chest, body bending with the force of it.

Dad, for his part, tries to play it cool, but the few seconds he stays frozen say it all, because to make a man that is always in control shocked takes skill, and boy, is Ben skilled. He doesn’t even laugh, but Klaus knows him enough to see that he is trying with everything he can to stay still, and not roll on the ground like Klaus is doing.

In Klaus’ defense, he is pretty sure he is losing his mind.

“What is so funny, Number Four?” Dad asks, ignoring Ben’s question entirely, which is a small blessing, because Klaus can tell that Ben is about to lose his mind, too.

Five, god bless him, is the only one in the room with more than a third of a single brain cell. “I – I don’t k – know!” Klaus replies honestly, struggling to breathe.

“Klaus,” Five says through clenched teeth, looking a little red, “you know laughter is forbidden during breakfast, right, _dear brother_?” The boy basically spits the last part out, and Klaus giggles one last time, before sitting up, and wiping his face with the sleeves of his blazer, much to his dad’s distaste.

“Right, right,” Klaus mutters, getting up and dusting off his schoolboy shorts, “I forgot we were in Nazi Germany for a second there.”

“Number Four,” dad starts, looking a little lost.

“Yes, daddy?” Klaus asks, and the word ‘daddy’ has been ruined for him, but he knows dad hates it when they call him anything but ‘sir’ so he suffers through it.

Beside him, Ben coughs, looking away to hide a little smirk. Dad’s eyes linger on Klaus for a second, as if he has x-ray vision, before he clears his throat.

“Behave yourself,” he finally opts for saying, and Klaus smirks.

Oh, he is going to be on his best behavior, _definitely_.

*

After breakfast, they have half an hour of free time, and they choose to spend it in Vanya’s room, debriefing. Choose to. Totally not forced to.

Five, is furious, as always, ranting off about how careless they are, how reckless, how stupid, and a bunch of other insults – Klaus dazes off three seconds into it, because he hasn’t slept very well, and Five has a voice that’s really easy to ignore.

“Klaus,” he hears a voice say, and he snaps out of it, lifting his head to look around, but everyone is still arguing, and nobody seems to be looking at him – Klaus feels his whole body grow cold, and his limbs freeze with the ice in his veins.

“ _Klaus_ ,” the voice says again, whispers, and Klaus is just now noticing the echo it has, the emptiness it brings.

He closes his eyes as tightly as he can, biting on the inside of his cheek. He is trying to play it cool, before he realizes how stupid that is, because nobody will notice anyway, and if they do, well... Klaus has always been a little bit of a crackhead.

So, while his eyes are tightly shut, he presses his hands against his ears, trying to block out the voice, and one by one, everything drowns out, his siblings all disappear, someone pulls the chair from underneath him, and he is floating inside the empty space of Vanya’s room, where nothing exists, except him.

“Open your eyes,” the voice commands, and Klaus remembers being tied to a chair, such a distant memory now, even though it happened not so long ago. He remembers being tied to a chair, and all the voices speaking, and the room around him small, suffocating – or was it a closet? He remembers not being able to move, to talk, to breathe, and the voices wouldn’t shut up, and the closet is hot, before it drops down to cold, and suddenly, he is in another place, arms free, scratching at a stone wall, as he screams for his dad –

Klaus gets up so fast that he almost knocks the chair down, drawing everyone’s attention to himself. The first face he sees is Allison’s and she looks confused, and Klaus knows he has to leave, before it can turn to something else.

“This is boring,” he says, putting on his best brat-voice, dramatic sigh included, with a roll of his eyes. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re not,” Five replies to that, and when Klaus looks at him, his arms are crossed off in front of his chest in a stubborn way, almost looking childish on his thirteen-year-old body, like a little kid pouting.

Behind him, there is a man, flickering, with blood sticking to his face, his clothes, with blood sticking to everything, and as the man senses Klaus, Klaus tries to make a run for it.

Standing in front of the door: Luther. “What, you guys are gonna keep me hostage? It’s not like I’m the one who should be scolded anyway! I’m not the one who got into trouble on the first day—”

“But you are bound to,” Luther says, blocking the door, and Klaus refrains from wiping his sweaty hands on the thighs of his shorts.

He doesn’t why he is suddenly so worried, but there is just something off about his body – it should be a matter of the mind, whether he is scared of the spirits or not, but even though mentally he has grown past his fear, his body is still reacting like a thirteen-year-old.

“Let him go,” Diego says, “he is right. This is useless.”

“Nobody is leaving,” Five says, and Klaus is staring at Luther, refusing to look back.

“I agree,” Luther says, which is a rare thing. “We need to have this talk, before any of us screw something up—”

“You already screwed up,” Ben says, and Klaus is sweating through his shirt, his whole body hot and cold, his hands numb and his knees weak. “You know how much dad cares about breakfast—”

Then, everybody starts arguing again, and nobody is letting one other speak, all of them talking over each other, and nothing makes sense.

“Klaus,” someone says. “Turn around,” someone says. “Look at me,” someone says.

“ _Klaus_ ,” someone repeats, sounding closer, and Klaus jumps up, making a move for the door.

When Klaus first discovered his powers, he was eight.

He can’t really remember being eight – all his memories are so fuzzy, and when he tries to think back, they are all hidden behind a fog, thick smoke, and Klaus has never been good at remembering, nor forgetting, because he always remembers the wrong things.

He doesn’t remember being eight and playing dress-up with Allison, or trying to make the most disgusting food with Ben, or playing Tag with Diego. He remembers the spirits, the bodies, and the blood.

Back then, he was always so scared, even though his power only manifested through his dreams. He would dream of dead people, and they would tell him things that he couldn’t just make up – that’s how dad found out.

For the first few months, Klaus was dead afraid of sleeping, no pun intended. Then, his powers started growing, as he grew up with them.

First, it started with the voices speaking to him during the day, then, it was visions behind his eyelids, before finally, when he was thirteen, the spirits started to take shape, forming into actual bodies that he could see, hear, smell – he started drugs, before he could learn to touch them too.

Now, he is thirteen again, and there is a little misunderstanding between his body and his brain, because his brain knows that the spirits aren’t scary at all, while his body is reacting like the apocalypse is coming.

Luther grabs his arm, pulling him before pushing him back, and the movement jostles Klaus, makes him dizzy for a second, but there is no mistaking it. “You’re not leaving,” Luther says, but he suddenly sounds far away, as Klaus feels his whole body go cold, go light, go faint, go through the spirit’s body.

It’s always such a strange feeling, no matter how much it happens. It’s not really bad, when you are expecting it. In that moment, Klaus is not expecting it, so when he realizes what is happening, he jumps forward, and the world is narrowing down, a black edge around his vision tunneling in, and his chest is tight, like someone is squeezing him – 

“Fuck!” He yells, a second too late, turning around to face the spirit, to face his attacker, the threat, and he is remembering now, how he always felt like he was never safe, because everywhere he went, there was somebody dead, and he is remembering now, why he started using, and he is remembering now, how good it felt to finally feel safe again.

The man has pale skin, and grey eyes, almost blending in. His hair is stringy, falling on his forehead, and his lips are almost as white as his skin. On his hat, there is blood, on his clothes, there is blood – Klaus is starting to think that it might not all be the man’s, because there is no way he bled out that much, no way any human can bleed out that much, because it’s like someone dipped the man in ketchup, with how there is blood _everywhere_.

Klaus’ whole body is itching, and he feels like ants are crawling on his skin, underneath it, and there are no words to describe it, but he feels like he doesn’t fit inside the room with how big he is, he doesn’t feel like he fits in his own body, his own skin.

His lungs are burning with the need to breathe, but his body can’t obey, he is frozen, in time, and space, the lump in his throat too big to swallow, the man in front of him is too bright to look at.

“Klaus,” Ben says, and Klaus never wants to hear his name again – “Klaus,” Ben repeats, sounding closer now, and Klaus is staring at the man, as the man stares at him –

He snaps his head to the direction of the voice, and sees that Ben is next to him, looking like the confusion morphed into worry instead, and Klaus knows he failed at playing cool, because everybody is staring at him.

(It takes a great deal to look away from the man, because Klaus doesn’t know if the man will be able touch him, if the man will reach out and grab his face, his throat, and how do you fight against someone already dead, anyway?)

Ben, next to him. “What’s going on?”

“I’m too sober for this shit is what’s going on,” Klaus can’t help but snap, because it’s bullshit that he has to stay and pretend to listen to the ‘debrief’ when Diego and Luther are the ones who fucked up, and even though Klaus did the best he could to not cause trouble on the first day, there he is anyway, getting the same treatment as he would have if he just slept in and refused to wear the stupid uniform, with the tie included –

_The fucking tie_. It’s so hard to breathe because of it.

“We are all too sober for this shit,” Diego says, at the same time Luther asks, “you’re sober?”

Klaus would be offended, if he was capable of feeling offended. Though, a part of him aches, like he expected better.

“Can you help me?” The man speaks, then, and Klaus suppresses a shiver. Dead don’t sound any different from everyone else, but there is always something in their voice, a slight tingle, a little echo, a hint of ice, and Klaus is used to it at this point, but under everyone’s gaze, while his body is in fight-or-flight mode for a reason he doesn’t understand, it’s safe to say that he is a little on edge.

“No,” he replies instantly, before the man can get any ideas –

“Of course not,” Luther replies, even though Klaus has already lost interest in them, in the whole room, the whole house, honestly, he is starting to realize how much bullshit everybody has been spewing from the moment they came back here.

Klaus is done with it all.

“I just need you to deliver a message to him,” the man says, and he is stepping closer, no matter how many steps Klaus takes back, slow, and measured, so nobody can tell.

“Klaus,” Ben is saying, again, because Klaus is getting lost, again, and his hands are going numb, and his chest is shrinking down, until there is nothing left.

“Everybody shut up!” Diego yells, and Klaus only realizes that they have started arguing again when the background noise finally quiets down, and silence settles, except for the raspy sound of the man breathing, and the beating of his heart inside his ears. “There is something wrong with Klaus.”

“I want you to tell him,” the man starts, stepping closer again, again, _again_ , until there is only an air of space between them, until Klaus is unable to look at anywhere else but the man’s dead eyes, staring right at him, his soul, his heart, his being.

“He is seeing something,” Ben says, and Klaus’ whole mind is buzzing, overloading, and it really shouldn’t be this big of a deal – it’s just one body, and nothing else, it’s just one body, and a normal Saturday –

“Tell him that I’m here,” the man continues, and Klaus can feel the man’s breath fan his face, and he can smell it, smell the death that sticks to it, and he can smell nothing else, except for rot, and blood – he knows – _he knows_ , if the man tried, if the man reached out, then he would be solid, and he could do anything he wanted to Klaus, finally the set would be complete, all five senses, tainted, and nothing would be safe –

“Klaus!” Ben sounds worried now, and there is movement behind Klaus, Luther, stepping forward, or away, and in the desert of his mind, something whispers to Klaus that the door is unoccupied now, so he can just leave, he can just run, but he still stands there, frozen and useless and floating, as he waits for the man to speak.

“Tell him that I’ll always be here,” the man says, as the ground shakes, “and tell him that one day, I’m going to get revenge, for my wife, my kids."

"And one day, he will get what’s coming for him.”

It’s a lame speech, in Klaus’ opinion. He wishes he could tell the man that, but his mouth refuses to speak.

Suddenly, someone grabs his arm, gentle, but it still makes Klaus flinch, and he momentarily looks away from the man’s eyes, and for a second, he is no longer a hostage, and in that second he has to himself, he knows what he needs to do to escape, forever –

Ben’s eyes are small, shining, and they hold the universe inside them, always, all the time.

Klaus looks away, turns away, and then, he runs away, as the voices fade away, and life slips away, like sand clenched in his fist, falling through the gaps between his fingers, and he is left clutching empty air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment to reduce 0.1 percent of my depression! (limited offer)


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